First-Year Engineering

Start with the First-year Engineering Courses

Get your first exposure to the engineering profession and its various disciplines through collaborative design challenges.

Develop skills in:

problem-solving
design thinking
computation
communication

As a first-year engineering student at Michigan Tech, you will collaborate with other students in your engineering courses. A team of students will join forces on small assignments and design challenges during class. Larger projects take place outside of class, functioning much like a professional engineering team. At Michigan Tech you will experience collaborative engineering teamwork right from the start.

ENG 1101 - Engineering Analysis and Problem Solving

An introduction to the engineering profession and to its various disciplines. Focuses on developing problem-solving skills, computational skills, and communication skills. Through active, collaborative work, students work on teams to apply the engineering problem-solving method to "real-world" problems.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-0-5)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Pre-Requisite(s): (MA 1031(C) or MA 1032(C) or MA 1120(C) or MA 1160(C) or MA 1161(C) or MA 1121(C) or MA 2160(C) or MA 3160(C))

ENG 1102 - Engineering Modeling and Design

Continuation of ENG1101. Introduction to the engineering design process with an emphasis on graphics and documentation. Focuses on engineering problem solving in the context of the design process.

Credits: 3.0
Lec-Rec-Lab: (0-0-5)
Semesters Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Pre-Requisite(s): (MA 1031 or MA 1032 or MA 1120 or MA 1160(C) or MA 1161(C) or MA 1121(C) or MA 2160(C) or MA 3160(C)) and (ENG 1101 or ENG 1101T or (ENG 1001 and ENG 1100))

A sample of team projects:

Engineering for arctic environments
Autonomous robot
Alternative power generation
Smart cities
Human-powered vehicle
Chemical batch reactions
Escape design challenge
Engineering without borders

Use Active Learning

In a lecture-based class, it can take time to get feedback from the professor. That feedback is typically based on graded homework assignments or exams. By then the class had moved on to other topics.

At Michigan Tech, first-year engineering courses are not lecture-based. Instead they are active. Your professor will invest part of class introducing a new topic, and then give you the time to work on activities with your team. As your team grapples with a problem, your professor will go from team to team providing feedback as you need it.

Engineering Explorations

As part of your first-year experience, you will have the opportunity to attend several Engineering Explorations.

Undecided?

Undecided about which area of engineering to pursue? No problem. You'll have a chance to explore them all. Every engineering student at Michigan Tech takes the same core courses, and chooses a major after two or three semesters. You will get exposure to all the engineering fields before choosing a career path.